Coast Guard Academy Reviews

Pros

Great environment to connect academia to our humanitarian service

Pros

Great people working on a very focused and intrinsically rewarding mission. A fantastic facility with impeccably maintained grounds.

Advice to Management

Visit, become involved in, and benchmark other institutions of higher education. There are many lessons to be learned beyond federal service academy peers and internal Coast Guard human capital customers.

Pros

Good pay, top notch students.

Pros

Great mission and core values. Hours are pretty flexible, access to gym and can workout when you want, travel, and gear.

Pros

Chance to learn (re-learn) technical knowledge from past university training. My position was teaching so very much enjoyed interacting with the cadets. Also great way to gain experience with millennial thinking.

Advice to Management

Embrace those who come from outside the Coast Guard. We have a lot of real world experience and could help the program tremendously.

Pros

Children and parents were great to meet

Pros

Steady schedule, interesting student body, ideal location in New England

Pros

Excellent Benefits, great people to work with, exciting career.

Pros

The primary reason why the Academy continues as it does is the $. Both military and civilian are paid far too much for what they do. So the pro, if you are an employee, is the income. The benefits are not bad, of course, and people are generally respectful, to your face anyway.

Advice to Management

The CG Academy is more than just a military institution; it is a hybrid, where both military and educational priorities should be openly discussed, respected, and supported. In 2012 a former Assistant SUPT informed the faculty that 'this is not an educational institution..' That would frankly come as a great surprise to those who come here to pursue, inter alia, an education and the many accrediting agencies and parents that expect that cadets receive an education. Moreover, to be on the map of national prominence, the CG Academy needs to fully support research. The only civilian faculty who stay-on are not helping in that regard; they 'understand' that research is 'not possible' and just keep collecting their hefty paychecks. The Academy is well overdue for many changes. The Big Secret: Close the CG Academy, offer only OCS (via Navy), and save hundreds of $millions every year.

Pros

CGA offers a wonderful opportunity to develop and nurture leaders for the service (and their careers afterwards). The cadets appreciate your efforts, and it is awesome to see what they accomplish within a few short years. Many of the staff are extremely dedicated and excellent colleagues and mentors. When you luck out, there are wonderful people in charge who make showing up to work an absolute joy.

Advice to Management

For some folks, retire and quit doing any more damage. For other folks, make sure you are continuously benchmarking the best schools. Remember that your staff is a pool of folks who have exposure to many different organizations. Give them a chance to keep improving the end product. Work on diversity in the right way - go out to see America and make sure you stop at the unlikely places - don't just send cadets back to their own high school and call it job done on recruiting.

The biggest thing is - unless this is a fantastic tour in the Coast Guard for the military and a good place to build a career for a civilian, the end product will decline. It should be the greatest opportunity one is handed in their lifetime, rather than a job people are happy to be done with.